Masse : NDP Plan for High Speed Broadband Internet for all Canadians

May 14th, 2020 - 10:12pm

(Windsor)- Today, Brian Masse M.P. (Windsor West), NDP Innovation, Science, Economic Development Critic released the NDP plan for 100 percent of Canadians to finally have access to high speed broadband internet within the next four years rather than the government’s inadequate and underfunded program that would make people wait until at least 2030.

“During this public health crisis due to the COVID 19 pandemic the need for accessible and affordable high speed broadband internet has become obvious to all Canadians. With people sheltering at home and with schools and businesses closed, Canadians need a fast and reliable internet connection to communicate for work and school through online applications. It is an essential utility and must be treated as one. Unfortunately, the government has failed to treat this with the urgency it deserves,” Masse stated.

In Canada, 63 percent of rural households do not have access to high speed broadband (50/10 Mbs with unlimited data) and 14 percent of highways and major transport roads do not have access to LTE wireless services. In the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut, no households have access to high speed broadband (50/10 Mbs with unlimited data) and 72 percent of highways and major transport roads do not have access to LTE wireless services. During this public health emergency, the situation has gotten worse for Canadians in rural and remote areas. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority released data that in April, median rural download speeds were measured at 3.78 Mbps, compared to 44.09 Mbps in urban Canada – a difference of 11.7 times.

The NDP plan (see background document below) would do the following :

Declare high speed broadband internet an essential service with the requisite consumer price protections for universal affordable access.

Establish a comprehensive broadband build out plan to be started in the next 12 months with 95 percent to be completed in 36 months and with the remaining geographic challenges being addressed to reach 100 percent within 48 months.

The federal government fund the entire $ 6 billion buildout with the revenues from the spectrum auctions, which took in $3.45 billion in 2019 alone, and the CRTC Broadband Fund

“There has been twenty years of conservative and liberal governments’ neglect in providing this essential service to all Canadians while they have gorged on the $17.55 billion in revenues from the spectrum auctions. This public health crisis has exposed how dire the situation is. The government needs to act on this plan to ensure all Canadians are treated equally. The funds are available to do this now,” Masse stated.

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For More Information: Mohummed Peer 519-982-8816

NDP Plan for High Speed Broadband Internet for all Canadians

During this public health crisis due to the COVID 19 pandemic the need for accessible and affordable high speed broadband internet has become obvious to all Canadians. With people sheltering at home and with schools and businesses closed, Canadians need a fast and reliable internet connection to communicate for work and school through online applications. It is an essential utility and must be treated as one. Unfortunately, the government has failed to treat this with the urgency it deserves.

In Canada, 63 percent of rural households do not have access to high speed broadband (50/10 Mbs with unlimited data) and 14 percent of highways and major transport roads do not have access to LTE wireless services. In the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut, no households have access to high speed broadband (50/10 Mbs with unlimited data) and 72 percent of highways and major transport roads do not have access to LTE wireless services. During this public health emergency, the situation has gotten worse for Canadians in rural and remote areas. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority released data on May 8 as part of its Internet Performance Test that was submitted to the CRTC for their consultation on barriers to rural broadband deployment. Some of their findings include:

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, median speeds have continued to fall for rural users. Typical download speeds vary from 4 to 7 Mbps. Since February, speeds have fallen to 3.78 Mbps.

Urban speeds have actually increased since the COVID-19 pandemic began, climbing to an annual high of 44.09 Mbps in April. While urban internet users often have options to upgrade their service, options are limited for most rural users.

Rural Canadian upload speeds are, on average, ten times slower than urban speeds. Fast upload speeds are critical for video conferencing, cloud storage, and other popular productivity applications used by Canadians working and learning from home.

Overall, the median download and upload speeds for both rural and urban Canadians combined over the 12 month period were 17.56 Mbps download and 6.69 Mbps upload. These can be compared with other countries using https://viz.measurementlab.net/.

This is completely unacceptable and a product of government neglect going back decades.

Liberal government’s inadequate program

According to Budget 2019, it will cost approximately $6 billion to provide a full broadband connection to all Canadians.

The government announced its commitment to set a national broadband target, in which 95 per cent of Canadian homes and businesses will have access to internet speeds of at least 50/10 Mbps by 2026 and 100 per cent by 2030, no matter where they are located in the country.

This is an attempt to meet the broadband internet speed objective set by the CRTC for Canadian households and businesses.

In the budget the government allocated only $1.7 billion over 13 years, starting in 2019–20, to establish a new national high-speed internet program, the Universal Broadband Fund.

The present government program is inadequate and forces Canadians in underserved areas to wait more than a decade to get access to this essential service while the funding is less than a third of what is required for a complete build out. This calls out for specific measures to finally address this problem once and for all since the resources to do so are available.

Spectrum Auction Revenues

Since 2001, there have been multiple spectrum auctions, resulting in billions of dollars to the government for licenses being awarded to telecommunications companies.

The total revenue for the government from 2001 through 2019 was $17.55 billion, with $3.45 billion from 2019’s auction alone.

NDP Plan

With the funds available today from the spectrum auction in 2019, the $750 million from the CRTC Broadband Fund established in 2019 for projects in underserved areas, and the future proceeds from spectrum auctions to be held, the resources are there to completely fund a comprehensive build out to provide high speed broadband internet to all Canadians over the next few years. This would include:

Declare high speed broadband internet an essential service with the requisite consumer price protections for universal affordable access.

Establish a comprehensive broadband build out plan to be started in the next 12 months with 95 percent to be completed in 36 months and with the remaining geographic challenges being addressed to reach 100 percent within 48 months.

The federal government fund the entire $ 6 billion buildout with the revenues from the spectrum auctions and the CRTC Broadband Fund

Include partners in the infrastructure installation and ongoing operations in rural and remote locations such as indigenous communities, non-profits, municipalities and smaller independent telecom and utility companies.

Guarantee price equivalency between large metropolitan areas and rural and remote communities with regulatory rate setting for a basic universal affordable plan.

All funded projects must be open access.

The CRTC’s 50/10 basic speed target needs to be the floor, not the ceiling.

Fibre must be the default technology being deployed, wherever possible, ensuring the longevity and scalability of these investments.